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FRA Engineering is acquired

FRA Engineering and Architecture, which has a location in Orchard Park, has been acquired by T.Y. Lin International, a San Francisco-based infrastructure consulting firm, and is looking to add to its local staff.

FRA provides engineering, architecture, planning, code service and construction management to customers on the East Coast. TYLI said the deal fit its strategy of acquiring profitable, complementary companies. Terms were not disclosed.

FRA started in 1992 in Rochester and added a Buffalo office in 1998, after acquiring EMS Consulting, a transportation engineering firm. Earlier this year, FRA moved its Buffalo office to Orchard Park, to give itself room to grow and to better manage projects in Western New York and Pennsylvania.

FRA's four locations -- the other two are in Atlanta and Lexington, Ky. -- employ 105 people. Its Orchard Park location has eight people. FRA hopes to soon increase that total to 15 or 20, said Robert J. Radley, a TYLI vice president who had been FRA's president.

Radley said the deal will allow FRA's clients to benefit from the two companies' combined expertise. FRA also expects to see growth as a result of joining TYLI.

"They are a very highly recognized transportation and infrastructure firm," he said of TYLI. Among its past projects was designing a "seismic retrofit" for the main span of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The acquisition extends TYLI's geographic reach into the areas served by FRA, and allows the firm to branch out into the types of work that FRA focuses on, Radley said.

At the time of its acquisition, FRA had projected 2007 billings of $12 million, more than double its amount from two years earlier.